The 13-member Professor Kwesi Botchwey Committee probing the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) 2016 election defeat on Monday (June 19, 2017) presented a 455-page report to the National Executive Committee of the party.

Professor Botchwey handed over the voluminous document titled “Listening To The Voice Of The Grassroots” to the national chairman of the NDC, Mr Kofi Portuphy at the party’s headquarters in Accra.

The Deputy General-Secretary of the party, Koku Anyidoho insisted that the report would not be made public and the closest journalists would get to it was at the ceremony.

However, Prof Botchway who led the fact-finding committee on their journey across the country gave an insight into some of the recommendations at the press briefing.

He said he was hopeful that the recommendations when implemented, would win the NDC party the 2020 polls.

Eight recommendations contained in the Kwesi Botchwey report

1. That the party puts together a group of credible and eminent members of our party to undertake a peacebuilding and healing of the country.

2. That the party takes steps to restore the integrity of the biometric register and the expanded electoral college.

3. We recommend that steps be taken to restore the capacity and effectiveness of the party’s organs especially at the branch level where we believe these organs are the most critical because they are the party’s immediate connection to the people, we are afterall a truly mass party.

4. We also have recommendations on ways we can and must improve the collation of election results.

5. We also believe that steps ought to be taken by the party to reconnect itself properly to our social democratic roots and the principal actors in these social democratic roots.

6. We recommend that steps ought to be taken to strengthen research and intelligence in the party. This should involve crowding in a larger body of the party’s intellectual base which has not been particularly active in the past, this will help to support the party’s research capacity.

7. There are recommendations that the party will scale-up and re-invigorate its work in the area of youth organisation.

8. The organisation of women, we note that significant changes have taken place in the country’s demographic profile and that the party ought to take notice of this and all the implications of these changes.